Thanks. :) I obsessed quite a bit about this about 10 years ago. Yes, it's been 10 years since the important things in Opera Mini transcoding/system design happened. At first it enabled web browsing on new expensive Nokia, Sony Ericsson, etc phones primarily in Europe/Russia, then the focus shifted to Africa and Asia/India.

Back then I figured: when when you are architecturally forced to throw out compliance with lots of fancy newfangled dynamic stuff, why not focus on readability and page navigation usability instead?

(I led the Opera Mini team at Opera until last year.)